Opis ebooka Adventure - Jack London

Located in the Solomon Islands, this devastating portrayal of copra plantation slavery has scholars arguing whether London was criticizing the racism of the colonialists or approving of it. (From http://london.sonoma.edu/)

Opinie o ebooku Adventure - Jack London

Fragment ebooka Adventure - Jack London

Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), was an
American author who wrote The Call of the Wild and other books. A
pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine
fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a huge financial
success from writing. Source: Wikipedia

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Chapter1
Something To Be Done

He was a very sick white man. He rode pick-a-back on a woolly-
headed, black-skinned savage, the lobes of whose ears had been
pierced and stretched until one had torn out, while the other
carried a circular block of carved wood three inches in diameter.
The torn ear had been pierced again, but this time not so
ambitiously, for the hole accommodated no more than a short clay
pipe. The man-horse was greasy and dirty, and naked save for an
exceedingly narrow and dirty loin-cloth; but the white man clung to
him closely and desperately. At times, from weakness, his head
drooped and rested on the woolly pate. At other times he lifted his
head and stared with swimming eyes at the cocoanut palms that
reeled and swung in the shimmering heat. He was clad in a thin
undershirt and a strip of cotton cloth, that wrapped about his
waist and descended to his knees. On his head was a battered
Stetson, known to the trade as a Baden-Powell. About his middle was
strapped a belt, which carried a large-calibred automatic pistol
and several spare clips, loaded and ready for quick work.

The rear was brought up by a black boy of fourteen or fifteen,
who carried medicine bottles, a pail of hot water, and various
other hospital appurtenances. They passed out of the compound
through a small wicker gate, and went on under the blazing sun,
winding about among new-planted cocoanuts that threw no shade.
There was not a breath of wind, and the superheated, stagnant air
was heavy with pestilence. From the direction they were going arose
a wild clamour, as of lost souls wailing and of men in torment. A
long, low shed showed ahead, grass-walled and grass-thatched, and
it was from here that the noise proceeded. There were shrieks and
screams, some unmistakably of grief, others unmistakably of
unendurable pain. As the white man drew closer he could hear a low
and continuous moaning and groaning. He shuddered at the thought of
entering, and for a moment was quite certain that he was going to
faint. For that most dreaded of Solomon Island scourges, dysentery,
had struck Berande plantation, and he was all alone to cope with
it. Also, he was afflicted himself.

By stooping close, still on man-back, he managed to pass through
the low doorway. He took a small bottle from his follower, and
sniffed strong ammonia to clear his senses for the ordeal. Then he
shouted, "Shut up!" and the clamour stilled. A raised platform of
forest slabs, six feet wide, with a slight pitch, extended the full
length of the shed. Alongside of it was a yard-wide run-way.
Stretched on the platform, side by side and crowded close, lay a
score of blacks. That they were low in the order of human life was
apparent at a glance. They were man-eaters. Their faces were
asymmetrical, bestial; their bodies were ugly and ape-like. They
wore nose-rings of clam-shell and turtle-shell, and from the ends
of their noses which were also pierced, projected horns of beads
strung on stiff wire. Their ears were pierced and distended to
accommodate wooden plugs and sticks, pipes, and all manner of
barbaric ornaments. Their faces and bodies were tattooed or scarred
in hideous designs. In their sickness they wore no clothing, not
even loin-cloths, though they retained their shell armlets, their
bead necklaces, and their leather belts, between which and the skin
were thrust naked knives. The bodies of many were covered with
horrible sores. Swarms of flies rose and settled, or flew back and
forth in clouds.

The white man went down the line, dosing each man with medicine.
To some he gave chlorodyne. He was forced to concentrate with all
his will in order to remember which of them could stand
ipecacuanha, and which of them were constitutionally unable to
retain that powerful drug. One who lay dead he ordered to be
carried out. He spoke in the sharp, peremptory manner of a man who
would take no nonsense, and the well men who obeyed his orders
scowled malignantly. One muttered deep in his chest as he took the
corpse by the feet. The white man exploded in speech and action. It
cost him a painful effort, but his arm shot out, landing a back-
hand blow on the black's mouth.

With the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered
himself to spring. The anger of a wild animal was in his eyes; but
he saw the white man's hand dropping to the pistol in his belt. The
spring was never made. The tensed body relaxed, and the black,
stooping over the corpse, helped carry it out. This time there was
no muttering.

"Swine!" the white man gritted out through his teeth at the
whole breed of Solomon Islanders.

He was very sick, this white man, as sick as the black men who
lay helpless about him, and whom he attended. He never knew, each
time he entered the festering shambles, whether or not he would be
able to complete the round. But he did know in large degree of
certainty that, if he ever fainted there in the midst of the
blacks, those who were able would be at his throat like ravening
wolves.

Part way down the line a man was dying. He gave orders for his
removal as soon as he had breathed his last. A black stuck his head
inside the shed door, saying, -

"Four fella sick too much."

Fresh cases, still able to walk, they clustered about the
spokesman. The white man singled out the weakest, and put him in
the place just vacated by the corpse. Also, he indicated the next
weakest, telling him to wait for a place until the next man died.
Then, ordering one of the well men to take a squad from the field-
force and build a lean-to addition to the hospital, he continued
along the run-way, administering medicine and cracking jokes in
beche-de-mer English to cheer the sufferers. Now and again, from
the far end, a weird wail was raised. When he arrived there he
found the noise was emitted by a boy who was not sick. The white
man's wrath was immediate.

"You sing out, him fella brother belong you die too much," the
white man went on in threatening tones. "I cross too much along
you. What name you sing out, eh? You fat-head make um brother
belong you die dose up too much. You fella finish sing out, savvee?
You fella no finish sing out I make finish damn quick."

He threatened the wailer with his fist, and the black cowered
down, glaring at him with sullen eyes.

"Sing out no good little bit," the white man went on, more
gently. "You no sing out. You chase um fella fly. Too much strong
fella fly. You catch water, washee brother belong you; washee
plenty too much, bime bye brother belong you all right. Jump!" he
shouted fiercely at the end, his will penetrating the low
intelligence of the black with dynamic force that made him jump to
the task of brushing the loathsome swarms of flies away.

Again he rode out into the reeking heat. He clutched the black's
neck tightly, and drew a long breath; but the dead air seemed to
shrivel his lungs, and he dropped his head and dozed till the house
was reached. Every effort of will was torture, yet he was called
upon continually to make efforts of will. He gave the black he had
ridden a nip of trade-gin. Viaburi, the house-boy, brought him
corrosive sublimate and water, and he took a thorough antiseptic
wash. He dosed himself with chlorodyne, took his own pulse, smoked
a thermometer, and lay back on the couch with a suppressed groan.
It was mid-afternoon, and he had completed his third round that
day. He called the house-boy.

"Take um big fella look along Jessie," he commanded.

The boy carried the long telescope out on the veranda, and
searched the sea.

There was silence for a time, during which he waited with eager
impatience.

"Maybe Jessie, maybe other fella schooner," came the faltering
admission.

The man wormed to the edge of the couch, and slipped off to the
floor on his knees. By means of a chair he drew himself to his
feet. Still clinging to the chair, supporting most of his weight on
it, he shoved it to the door and out upon the veranda. The sweat
from the exertion streamed down his face and showed through the
undershirt across his shoulders. He managed to get into the chair,
where he panted in a state of collapse. In a few minutes he roused
himself. The boy held the end of the telescope against one of the
veranda scantlings, while the man gazed through it at the sea. At
last he picked up the white sails of the schooner and studied
them.

"No Jessie," he said very quietly. "That's the Malakula."

He changed his seat for a steamer reclining-chair. Three hundred
feet away the sea broke in a small surf upon the beach. To the left
he could see the white line of breakers that marked the bar of the
Balesuna River, and, beyond, the rugged outline of Savo Island.
Directly before him, across the twelve-mile channel, lay Florida
Island; and, farther to the right, dim in the distance, he could
make out portions of Malaita—the savage island, the abode of
murder, and robbery, and man-eating—the place from which his own
two hundred plantation hands had been recruited. Between him and
the beach was the cane-grass fence of the compound. The gate was
ajar, and he sent the house-boy to close it. Within the fence grew
a number of lofty cocoanut palms. On either side the path that led
to the gate stood two tall flagstaffs. They were reared on
artificial mounds of earth that were ten feet high. The base of
each staff was surrounded by short posts, painted white and
connected by heavy chains. The staffs themselves were like ships'
masts, with topmasts spliced on in true nautical fashion, with
shrouds, ratlines, gaffs, and flag-halyards. From the gaff of one,
two gay flags hung limply, one a checkerboard of blue and white
squares, the other a white pennant centred with a red disc. It was
the international code signal of distress.

On the far corner of the compound fence a hawk brooded. The man
watched it, and knew that it was sick. He wondered idly if it felt
as bad as he felt, and was feebly amused at the thought of kinship
that somehow penetrated his fancy. He roused himself to order the
great bell to be rung as a signal for the plantation hands to cease
work and go to their barracks. Then he mounted his man-horse and
made the last round of the day.

In the hospital were two new cases. To these he gave castor-oil.
He congratulated himself. It had been an easy day. Only three had
died. He inspected the copra-drying that had been going on, and
went through the barracks to see if there were any sick lying
hidden and defying his rule of segregation. Returned to the house,
he received the reports of the boss-boys and gave instructions for
next day's work. The boat's crew boss also he had in, to give
assurance, as was the custom nightly, that the whale-boats were
hauled up and padlocked. This was a most necessary precaution, for
the blacks were in a funk, and a whale-boat left lying on the beach
in the evening meant a loss of twenty blacks by morning. Since the
blacks were worth thirty dollars apiece, or less, according to how
much of their time had been worked out, Berande plantation could
ill afford the loss. Besides, whale-boats were not cheap in the
Solomons; and, also, the deaths were daily reducing the working
capital. Seven blacks had fled into the bush the week before, and
four had dragged themselves back, helpless from fever, with the
report that two more had been killed and kai-kai'd[1] by the hospitable bushmen. The
seventh man was still at large, and was said to be working along
the coast on the lookout to steal a canoe and get away to his own
island.

Viaburi brought two lighted lanterns to the white man for
inspection. He glanced at them and saw that they were burning
brightly with clear, broad flames, and nodded his head. One was
hoisted up to the gaff of the flagstaff, and the other was placed
on the wide veranda. They were the leading lights to the Berande
anchorage, and every night in the year they were so inspected and
hung out.

He rolled back on his couch with a sigh of relief. The day's
work was done. A rifle lay on the couch beside him. His revolver
was within reach of his hand. An hour passed, during which he did
not move. He lay in a state of half-slumber, half-coma. He became
suddenly alert. A creak on the back veranda was the cause. The room
was L-shaped; the corner in which stood his couch was dim, but the
hanging lamp in the main part of the room, over the billiard table
and just around the corner, so that it did not shine on him, was
burning brightly. Likewise the verandas were well lighted. He
waited without movement. The creaks were repeated, and he knew
several men lurked outside.

"What name?" he cried sharply.

The house, raised a dozen feet above the ground, shook on its
pile foundations to the rush of retreating footsteps.

"They're getting bold," he muttered. "Something will have to be
done."

The full moon rose over Malaita and shone down on Berande.
Nothing stirred in the windless air. From the hospital still
proceeded the moaning of the sick. In the grass-thatched barracks
nearly two hundred woolly-headed man-eaters slept off the weariness
of the day's toil, though several lifted their heads to listen to
the curses of one who cursed the white man who never slept. On the
four verandas of the house the lanterns burned. Inside, between
rifle and revolver, the man himself moaned and tossed in intervals
of troubled sleep.

Chapter2
Something Is Done

In the morning David Sheldon decided that he was worse. That he
was appreciably weaker there was no doubt, and there were other
symptoms that were unfavourable. He began his rounds looking for
trouble. He wanted trouble. In full health, the strained situation
would have been serious enough; but as it was, himself growing
helpless, something had to be done. The blacks were getting more
sullen and defiant, and the appearance of the men the previous
night on his veranda—one of the gravest of offences on Berande—was
ominous. Sooner or later they would get him, if he did not get them
first, if he did not once again sear on their dark souls the
flaming mastery of the white man.

He returned to the house disappointed. No opportunity had
presented itself of making an example of insolence or
insubordination—such as had occurred on every other day since the
sickness smote Berande. The fact that none had offended was in
itself suspicious. They were growing crafty. He regretted that he
had not waited the night before until the prowlers had entered.
Then he might have shot one or two and given the rest a new lesson,
writ in red, for them to con. It was one man against two hundred,
and he was horribly afraid of his sickness overpowering him and
leaving him at their mercy. He saw visions of the blacks taking
charge of the plantation, looting the store, burning the buildings,
and escaping to Malaita. Also, one gruesome vision he caught of his
own head, sun-dried and smoke-cured, ornamenting the canoe house of
a cannibal village. Either the Jessie would have to arrive, or he
would have to do something.

The bell had hardly rung, sending the labourers into the fields,
when Sheldon had a visitor. He had had the couch taken out on the
veranda, and he was lying on it when the canoes paddled in and
hauled out on the beach. Forty men, armed with spears, bows and
arrows, and war-clubs, gathered outside the gate of the compound,
but only one entered. They knew the law of Berande, as every native
knew the law of every white man's compound in all the thousand
miles of the far-flung Solomons. The one man who came up the path,
Sheldon recognized as Seelee, the chief of Balesuna village. The
savage did not mount the steps, but stood beneath and talked to the
white lord above.

Seelee was more intelligent than the average of his kind, but
his intelligence only emphasized the lowness of that kind. His
eyes, close together and small, advertised cruelty and craftiness.
A gee-string and a cartridge-belt were all the clothes he wore. The
carved pearl-shell ornament that hung from nose to chin and impeded
speech was purely ornamental, as were the holes in his ears mere
utilities for carrying pipe and tobacco. His broken-fanged teeth
were stained black by betel-nut, the juice of which he spat upon
the ground.

As he talked or listened, he made grimaces like a monkey. He
said yes by dropping his eyelids and thrusting his chin forward. He
spoke with childish arrogance strangely at variance with the
subservient position he occupied beneath the veranda. He, with his
many followers, was lord and master of Balesuna village. But the
white man, without followers, was lord and master of Berande—ay,
and on occasion, single-handed, had made himself lord and master of
Balesuna village as well. Seelee did not like to remember that
episode. It had occurred in the course of learning the nature of
white men and of learning to abominate them. He had once been
guilty of sheltering three runaways from Berande. They had given
him all they possessed in return for the shelter and for promised
aid in getting away to Malaita. This had given him a glimpse of a
profitable future, in which his village would serve as the one
depot on the underground railway between Berande and Malaita.

Unfortunately, he was ignorant of the ways of white men. This
particular white man educated him by arriving at his grass house in
the gray of dawn. In the first moment he had felt amused. He was so
perfectly safe in the midst of his village. But the next moment,
and before he could cry out, a pair of handcuffs on the white man's
knuckles had landed on his mouth, knocking the cry of alarm back
down his throat. Also, the white man's other fist had caught him
under the ear and left him without further interest in what was
happening. When he came to, he found himself in the white man's
whale-boat on the way to Berande. At Berande he had been treated as
one of no consequence, with handcuffs on hands and feet, to say
nothing of chains. When his tribe had returned the three runaways,
he was given his freedom. And finally, the terrible white man had
fined him and Balesuna village ten thousand cocoanuts. After that
he had sheltered no more runaway Malaita men. Instead, he had gone
into the business of catching them. It was safer. Besides, he was
paid one case of tobacco per head. But if he ever got a chance at
that white man, if he ever caught him sick or stood at his back
when he stumbled and fell on a bush- trail—well, there would be a
head that would fetch a price in Malaita.

Sheldon was pleased with what Seelee told him. The seventh man
of the last batch of runaways had been caught and was even then at
the gate. He was brought in, heavy-featured and defiant, his arms
bound with cocoanut sennit, the dry blood still on his body from
the struggle with his captors.

"Me savvee you good fella, Seelee," Sheldon said, as the chief
gulped down a quarter-tumbler of raw trade-gin. "Fella boy belong
me you catch short time little bit. This fella boy strong fella too
much. I give you fella one case tobacco—my word, one case tobacco.
Then, you good fella along me, I give you three fathom calico, one
fella knife big fella too much."

The tobacco and trade goods were brought from the store-room by
two house-boys and turned over to the chief of Balesuna village,
who accepted the additional reward with a non-committal grunt and
went away down the path to his canoes. Under Sheldon's directions
the house-boys handcuffed the prisoner, by hands and feet, around
one of the pile supports of the house. At eleven o'clock, when the
labourers came in from the field, Sheldon had them assembled in the
compound before the veranda. Every able man was there, including
those who were helping about the hospital. Even the women and the
several pickaninnies of the plantation were lined up with the rest,
two deep—a horde of naked savages a trifle under two hundred
strong. In addition to their ornaments of bead and shell and bone,
their pierced ears and nostrils were burdened with safety-pins,
wire nails, metal hair-pins, rusty iron handles of cooking
utensils, and the patent keys for opening corned beef tins. Some
wore penknives clasped on their kinky locks for safety. On the
chest of one a china door-knob was suspended, on the chest of
another the brass wheel of an alarm clock.

Facing them, clinging to the railing of the veranda for support,
stood the sick white man. Any one of them could have knocked him
over with the blow of a little finger. Despite his firearms, the
gang could have rushed him and delivered that blow, when his head
and the plantation would have been theirs. Hatred and murder and
lust for revenge they possessed to overflowing. But one thing they
lacked, the thing that he possessed, the flame of mastery that
would not quench, that burned fiercely as ever in the disease-
wasted body, and that was ever ready to flare forth and scorch and
singe them with its ire.

"Narada! Billy!" Sheldon called sharply.

Two men slunk unwillingly forward and waited.

Sheldon gave the keys of the handcuffs to a house-boy, who went
under the house and loosed the prisoner.

"You fella Narada, you fella Billy, take um this fella boy along
tree and make fast, hands high up," was Sheldon's command.

While this was being done, slowly, amidst mutterings and
restlessness on the part of the onlookers, one of the house-boys
fetched a heavy-handled, heavy-lashed whip. Sheldon began a
speech.

"This fella Arunga, me cross along him too much. I no steal this
fella Arunga. I no gammon. I say, 'All right, you come along me
Berande, work three fella year.' He say, 'All right, me come along
you work three fella year.' He come. He catch plenty good fella
kai-kai,[2] plenty good fella money. What name
he run away? Me too much cross along him. I knock what name outa
him fella. I pay Seelee, big fella master along Balesuna, one case
tobacco catch that fella Arunga. All right. Arunga pay that fella
case tobacco. Six pounds that fella Arunga pay. Alle same one year
more that fella Arunga work Berande. All right. Now he catch ten
fella whip three times. You fella Billy catch whip, give that fella
Arunga ten fella three times. All fella boys look see, all fella
Marys[3] look see; bime bye, they like run
away they think strong fella too much, no run away. Billy, strong
fella too much ten fella three times."

The house-boy extended the whip to him, but Billy did not take
it. Sheldon waited quietly. The eyes of all the cannibals were
fixed upon him in doubt and fear and eagerness. It was the moment
of test, whereby the lone white man was to live or be lost.

"Ten fella three times, Billy," Sheldon said encouragingly,
though there was a certain metallic rasp in his voice.

Billy scowled, looked up and looked down, but did not move.

"Billy!"

Sheldon's voice exploded like a pistol shot. The savage started
physically. Grins overspread the grotesque features of the
audience, and there was a sound of tittering.

"S'pose you like too much lash that fella Arunga, you take him
fella Tulagi," Billy said. "One fella government agent make plenty
lash. That um fella law. Me savvee um fella law."

It was the law, and Sheldon knew it. But he wanted to live this
day and the next day and not to die waiting for the law to operate
the next week or the week after.

"Too much talk along you!" he cried angrily. "What name eh? What
name?"

"Me savvee law," the savage repeated stubbornly.

"Astoa!"

Another man stepped forward in almost a sprightly way and
glanced insolently up. Sheldon was selecting the worst characters
for the lesson.

"Queensland you stop jail one fella year. White fella master
damn fool no hang you. You too much bad fella. Queensland you stop
jail six months two fella time. Two fella time you steal. All
right, you missionary. You savvee one fella prayer?"

"Yes, me savvee prayer," was the reply.

"All right, then you pray now, short time little bit. You say
one fella prayer damn quick, then me kill you."

Sheldon held the rifle on him and waited. The black glanced
around at his fellows, but none moved to aid him. They were intent
upon the coming spectacle, staring fascinated at the white man with
death in his hands who stood alone on the great veranda. Sheldon
has won, and he knew it. Astoa changed his weight irresolutely from
one foot to the other. He looked at the white man, and saw his eyes
gleaming level along the sights.

And Sheldon knew that when he had counted three he would drop
him in his tracks. The black knew it, too. That was why Sheldon did
not have to do it, for when he had counted one, Astoa reached out
his hand and took the whip. And right well Astoa laid on the whip,
angered at his fellows for not supporting him and venting his anger
with every stroke. From the veranda Sheldon egged him on to strike
with strength, till the two triced savages screamed and howled
while the blood oozed down their backs. The lesson was being well
written in red.

When the last of the gang, including the two howling culprits,
had passed out through the compound gate, Sheldon sank down half-
fainting on his couch.